Page 41 of Santa Baby

“We kissed.”

“Was it part of the show the two of you are putting on for the public?”

I bit down on my lip. “Um… no. Neither kiss⁠—”

“Twice? You’ve kissed him twice?”

I looked away and shrugged. “In my defense, he started it.”

“Mr. Billionaire kissed you first… twice?” Her eyes brightened as she gaped at me. “Oh, no. And to think I was so worried about you falling in unrequited love with him! He’s falling in love with you, Fia! Hell yeah. That’s my girl.”

“See, this is why I wasn’t going to tell you anything,” I teased. “This isn’t some fairy tale, all right? He’s not in love with me, and I’m not in love with him.” I took a long drink from my coffee, telling myself the heat rising to my cheeks was from the hot milk and not a blush flaring to life over my skin. “We’re just friends.”

“Friends who kiss,” she said, grinning.

“Friends who make out—hey,” I hissed, leveling her with a look. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud, not in the slightest. “It’s not that serious.”

“You’re bright red, Fia.”

I huffed a breath and sank deeper into my chair. “I am not.”

“You are! Come on, tell me! What’s the deal between you two and when do I get to meet him?”

“You won’t be meeting him because this isn’t real. It’s fake. Everything about it is fake!” I did not sound convinced, and Liv saw right through me, pursing her lips. “Okay, fine. I don’t know how to feel. I’m all over the place about it. Sometimes all I want to do is just grab his face and kiss him hard enough to make him forget that we aren’t actually dating and then I remember who he really is and how I ended up in this position!” I hissed the words through gritted teeth as Charlotte started moving in our direction with a hoard of dresses for me to try on.

Liv looked at me like I was crazy. “So? So what? You like him. I haven’t seen you this worked up about anyone before.”

“I—I liked Jake⁠—”

She raised her brows at me. “No, you didn’t. Not like this. You settled for Jake. You tolerated him.”

Losing my patience and unsure how to get my feelings across, I said in a rushed whisper, “I can’t like Mason this much because he’s Colin’s friend. Colin would blow his top if he found out we’d been making out on my couch like a couple of teenagers!”

“Easy fix. Don’t freaking tell him!”

“Are we ready?” Charlotte squealed in a sing-song voice, dollar signs lighting behind her eyes.

Liv and I exchanged equally catty glances. This conversation wasn’t over, whether I liked it or not.

I tried on dress after dress for the next hour. For a moment, we moved away from blue, and I nearly settled on a bright fuchsia-colored dress made of sequins that did indeed make me look like I’d flopped right out of the ocean onto some billionaire’s yacht, but I ended up passing on it, my mind locked on the moment Mason had seen me in the blue dress from the Blue Winter auction. I wanted him to look at me like that again.

Standing in a bra and panties in front of Charlotte, I fought the urge to throw in the towel. But I should have known better than to think she’d let me leave without finding the perfect dress. “I have something upstairs that would be perfect but it’s one of a kind and spendy.”

I was over it at this point, starving, tired, and far too in my head about Mason to even care what dresses came next. “I’ll try it on. What’s the worst that can happen?”

I found out ten minutes later while standing on the platform outside the dressing room in the most beautiful dress I’d ever seen in my life. It was a mermaid cut and shimmered from the bust to the hem in an array of blues and teals that seemed to move when I turned my body this way and that way. Beads and sequins danced in the soft lighting, and the dress fit me like a glove without any alternations needed.

I looked incredible. I felt incredible. But then I heard the price.

“I can’t,” I growled to Liv, who was just as pale as I was as we watched Charlotte and her team discuss accessories.

“You might have to,” Liv said. “I mean, just look at yourself in that thing.”

“I could go with the pink one.”

She shook her head. “Nothing is going to compare. Mason is going drop down on one knee⁠—”

“Or drop dead when he sees that I spent thirty thousand dollars on a gown!”